Protecting America's Children

Protecting America's children is the subject of this evening's Talking Points memo.

Our first two reports this evening deal with the murder of 7-year-old Danielle Van Dam in San Diego and the terrible murders of the five Yates children in Houston.

In both cases, society was not aggressive enough in protecting these kids. Russell Yates continued his testimony today, defending his wife, Andrea, on the stand and blaming doctors, mental illness, and circumstances for the deaths of his children.

But that is just a smokescreen, in my opinion. Mr. Yates told Fox News correspondent Mike Tobin that he dislikes me because I am "heartless." And as far as Russell Yates is concerned, I am pointing a finger directly at him and his wife. So if that makes me heartless, I guess I'm guilty.

But I fervently believe that there were enough warning signs for Mr. Yates to have taken aggressive action to protect his babies. Andrea Yates had a history of mental illness. Doctors warned the couple not to have any more children. They did anyway. Mrs. Yates tried to commit violence against herself and was clearly overwhelmed caring for five little kids.

Despite that, Russell Yates allowed his children to be home-schooled by his troubled wife. He did not provide supervision for her and had no idea if she was taking her medication. He thus allowed his children to exist in chaos and danger.

Last night I received a letter from Stan, who lives in Georgia. I'm withholding his last name. "Mr. O'Reilly, your reporting on the Yates story has caused much discussion in our house. My wife went through a very scary bout with postpartum depression, and the only reason my son lived through his first year was that I made sure she had no opportunity to hurt herself or him. Russell Yates deserves the pillorying that you are giving him."

And it's not only Mr. Yates. If I were on the jury in this case, I would be wondering why a woman as insane as Andrea Yates purports to be waited until she was alone in the house before she killed the children, and then had the clarity to call 911 and her husband and tell them she had done something awful.

Remember, the definition of legal insanity is the failure to discern right from wrong.

Anyway, my aim here is not to convict Mr. and Mrs. Yates on television. I'll leave that to the jury. But many of us in America simply will not acknowledge that true evil does exist, and we are far too accepting of excuses for atrocious behavior.

Sympathy is fine, acceptance of moral failure is not fine. Talking Points believes that the government and every American adult has the duty to protect children, and ignoring warning signs is unacceptable. The kids must come first, and we all must be proactive in providing children a safety zone.

Russell Yates was certainly not proactive. For that, he must answer.

And that's the memo.

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day." And this is in context to what we reported on earlier.

Judge Ronald Kline has been charged with trafficking in child pornography and child molestation and is awaiting trial. But and he's also awaiting an election. His name is the only one on the ballot in the Orange County Superior Court race in California because the indictment came after the filing. And Kline wants to retain his $136,000 job. So we have a situation similar to Gary Condit's. But let me say this. Voting for either Kline or Condit would be ridiculous.